


With life and death and emptiness

by Lilly_C



Series: Inking It Out [74]
Category: Taggart (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Developing Friendships, Drinking & Talking, Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, References to Canon, Snowflake Challenge, luxken27's Summer Mini Challenge, luxken27's Summer Mini Challenge 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_C/pseuds/Lilly_C
Summary: Karen bit back a downhearted sigh. “I hadn’t realised that Moretti and Casey were complicit in framing DCI Burke during the Scott Clarkson case.”





	With life and death and emptiness

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place somewhere between Bad Medicine and Fallen Angels. 
> 
> Written for [day 12 of snowflake challenge](https://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/36717.html), it also fills the prompts making new friends on my cottoncandy_bingo table, a human voice on my [500 prompts](https://alittleimprobable.dreamwidth.org/232451.html) list and carefully on my [summer mini challenge](https://alittleimprobable.dreamwidth.org/230910.html) table. The title is a line from Empty by PVRIS.
> 
> Any mistakes are my own and unintentional. Spot any goofs, give me a prod :)

Leaving the rest of the team to their drinking game while waiting for the food order to arrive, Jackie went in search of a friend who had text earlier in the day to say that she might be in the bar around 6 pm. Instead of finding her friend, she spotted Karen sitting along nursing a barely touched gin and ginger ale.

Jackie felt bad for Karen who was sitting alone in a far corner, approaching her, she said, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here Ma’am.”

Realising that a human voice was breaking through her reverie, Karen briefly looked up from her drink. “Jackie, care to join me?” she asked while making a show of carefully taking a sip of her almost forgotten drink.

Jackie accepted the offer, taking the seat facing her. “We’re all over there,” she mentioned while pointing towards the bar area. “If you’d like to join us.”

“Another time,” Karen answered, “I only stopped in for one on the way home.”

Opting to take a moment to compose her reply. “We’ve not exactly got off to a good start have we?” Jackie suspected that the other woman was deflecting, giving her a chance to end the conversation immediately.

“No, we haven’t,” Karen bit back a downhearted sigh. “I hadn’t realised that Moretti and Casey were complicit in framing DCI Burke during the Scott Clarkson case. I actually believed them when they told me that one of my own was bent.”

“Yeah, they were convincing. They had all of us fooled, not just you and what we saw in the car park the other night will stay with us for a long time.”

Karen recognised the need to change the subject from the brutal end of her first case as Chief Superintendent to something less distressing.

Fiddling with the wedding rings she had yet to remove, Karen said, “This promotion… I thought that it would be easier to settle into a well-established team. At my previous stations, I really struggled at all ranks and felt like I had to work twice had hard as everyone else to prove that I’m just as capable as they are.” Jokingly adding, “I was hoping for a quiet role before retirement.”

“There are things you’re hiding,” Jackie bluntly remarked, the slight smile she received told her that it’d be better to not start prying into Karen’s private life. “And those are not in a public place where anyone could hear,” she said, more as a reminder to herself than needing a confirmation from the other woman.

Taking another sip of her drink, Karen said, “I’ve kind of always envied you Jackie, you got the one promotion that I wanted. You got promoted to Jim Taggart’s team and have you’ve stayed at the same CID through all of the changes to personnel since his death. How do you do it? Cope with all of these changes, I mean.”

“Life goes on,” Jackie quietly dead-panned in response.

Karen shook her head, pretending not to hear the remark. “I know there was Michael’s death because that was in the local and national papers for several weeks, with Matt coming in to replace him. Someone you were close to died too.

Jackie was really regretting leaving her own drink at the table the three of them procured when they arrived. “With Jim, I lost a good friend and father figure, his wife is still a good friend of mine. The DCI and I butted heads for the first few months because I refused to accept that Michael could do anything crooked, of course, he was set up and that truth only came out after he died. When Michael died I lost one of my best friends and nobody can replace what we had.

Needing a moment to compose her next sentence Jackie took a healthy swallow of Karen’s drink. “Brian, my ex-husband had cancer, it was terminal. We met on a training course in Edinburgh, rushed into marriage and divorced within two years. He died in a hospice around five years ago. I was at his bedside every day offering whatever comfort I could but it never felt like it was enough, you know, or even if my presence was actually helping him at the very end. Some days he was incoherent because of the medication he was on, he went in his sleep, at least it was peaceful for him.”

“Shit,” Karen muttered, “I hadn’t meant for you to relive anything that painful.”

Reaching across the low table separating them Jackie placed her hand on top of Karen’s. “It’s okay, they’re in the past and I've found good ways to cope with a lot of these things.”

Letting out a relieved breath, Karen despondently mentioned, “Stepping on people’s toes is all I seem to do these days.”

“It’s understandable but as long as you let us deal with our cases and maybe offer some input from time to time it’ll go some way to convincing the others that you’re not out to get them.”

“You mean Burke and Ross?”

Jackie chuckled, “The boys? Yeah, they’re convinced you’re going to transfer them to other teams or worse have them kicked off the force.”

Karen smirked at comments. “Officers are only transferred off my team when their skills can be utilised more effectively elsewhere, as for being kicked off the force they would have to do something serious.”

A message alert came through to Jackie’s phone. “I’ll see what this is.” 

**WHERE R U? FOODS HERE!** was visible on the lock screen.

Taking a moment to stand from sitting on the low sofas, Jackie said, “I’d better go before they eat my food as well as theirs.”

“Enjoy,” Karen said.

“Come over and join us,” Jackie offered.

“Another time,” Karen declined while reaching for her handbag. “ I need to get home. Thanks for the chat, Jackie.”

Karen and Jackie walked towards the table where the others were, Jackie took her seat while Karen continued out of the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Looks like this is my first fic since August 2016 that isn’t for an exchange or a drablet. Fingers crossed my fic mojo returns this year.
> 
> Beta’d by Tamara on 26.1.18


End file.
